http://mmajunkie.comAsk UFC heavyweight champ Junior Dos Santos about the stories his boss has been peddling about him on Internet message boards recently, and the next sound you hear will be that happy, slightly embarrassed laugh of his. You know the one. It starts way down in the stomach somewhere and sounds almost boyish by the time it finishes. If he weren’t so big and so capable of knocking men unconscious with a single punch, you might be tempted to call it a giggle.

That’s why it’s hard to imagine that this man is the same one who, according to UFC President Dana White, “begged” for a fight with Dutch behemoth Alistair Overeem. It’s hard to picture him going to his boss and telling him – as White claimed he had in a post on The Underground forum last week – that he wants a fight with Overeem because “he hates him.”

Surely, that couldn’t be right. That had to be another instance of a promoter promoting, and playing fast and loose with the facts in the process, right? Dos Santos barely stops grinning long enough to look tough for the fight poster. Did he really go to his boss and tell him that he hates another human being and wants to beat him up out of malice rather than mere professional obligation? Could that possibly be true?

And there’s that laugh. The heavyweight champion of the world is giggling again.

“Yeah, that’s true,” Dos Santos said in a phone interview this past week. “For sure, I said that.”

But, even in the rare occupation where one stands a good chance of being rewarding for professing a hatred of one’s coworkers, he couldn’t let it stand. He’d said it, Dos Santos admitted, but he didn’t mean it. Not anymore, at least.

“I don’t hate anyone,” he added. “[Overeem] was lying a little bit about some things. I think that’s his way to promote his fight. But I don’t hate him.”

What was Overeem “lying” about, according to Dos Santos? You know, the usual. He said Dos Santos was scared to face him, that that’s why he preferred a rematch with Cain Velasquez rather than a showdown with the former Strikeforce and K-1 champion. More of a hypothesis, really, but still, Dos Santos didn’t care for it. Plus, it seemed like the fans wanted to see him fight Overeem, Dos Santos said, so there was that, too. It’s possible he got carried away. He can admit that now. It’s just that he wanted to give people what he thought they wanted.

That’s kind of Dos Santos’ thing, if you haven’t noticed. He’s a happy guy, and he wants others to be happy, too. Not so easy when you’re walking around with the UFC heavyweight strap, the coveted piece of hardware that’s been passed around like a dirty joke in a middle school locker room these past few years. It’s one thing to win the UFC heavyweight title, but another thing to hold onto it in a division of big men throwing big blows. One mistake and you’re face-down on the canvas. Reigning champs become former ones so quickly, as Dos Santos learned when he took the belt from Velasquez in just 64 seconds this past November.

Now the two are set to do it again at the UFC’s big year-end event in Las Vegas on Dec. 29. With one successful title defense to his credit already – albeit against a replacement opponent in Frank Mir, who filled in after Overeem was denied a license following a failed drug test – this is the kind of rematch that will go a long way toward determining whether Dos Santos is the man to finally bring some stability to the top of the heavyweight division. He beat Velasquez once, when both were suffering from training camp injuries and laboring under the burden of the network TV hype machine headed into the UFC’s first event on FOX. But something about the way that fight went, and how quickly it ended, makes you wonder if you don’t have to wipe the slate clean for the rematch.

Not surprisingly, Dos Santos doesn’t think so. “It was very fast,” he said of the first fight. “But I think I learned a little bit more about Cain Velasquez.”

For instance, he said, he learned how different it can be to fight a smaller heavyweight known for his pace and his conditioning. A guy who can keep attacking you for five full rounds without slowing down? That’s someone you want to take out in a hurry.

“His cardio is amazing, so that concerned me a little bit,” Dos Santos said. “I don’t want this fight to go longer. I want to finish it quick, because that’s the best way to fight Cain Velasquez.”

It also helped that Velasquez wasn’t quite as aggressive in the early going as many people expected. Criticism of the former champ’s approach in that fight was immediate and unmerciful, but that still irks Dos Santos just a little bit. It’s as if people were so willing to blame Velasquez for doing the wrong things that they failed to appreciate how fully Dos Santos succeeded in doing the right things, especially considering the knee injury he had coming into that fight. He had to finish it quickly, he said. The longer he let it go, the worse he knew his prospects would become.

“People said those things, but you never know what’s going to happen in a fight,” said Dos Santos. “I was looking for a good opportunity for me to finish the fight, because I had my knee hurt at that time. I was very worried about that. I don’t think Cain Velasquez did bad; I think I did good.”

But then, what else do you expect him to say? This is, after all, the man who can’t even bring himself to keep hating someone long enough to promote a real rivalry. Even when he gets mad he doesn’t stay that way for long. When he talks about Velasquez now, it’s all compliments and glowing reviews. The former champ is “a very special fighter,” according to the current champ.

That’s the kind of magnanimity that’s easy to come by when you’re the best. The fighters you’ve yet to face are good. The ones you’ve already beaten are great. Maybe that explains why Dos Santos seems so happy, so eager to laugh and make friends.

He’s at the very top, where life is always good. It’s staying there that’s the hard part. Especially when there are so many unfriendly faces staring up at you.

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